The chief executive of Sony in France was freed today after being held hostage overnight by workers practicing an increasing common negotiating tactic amid growing industrial unrest in France.

Serge Foucher and Roland Bentz, director of human resources, had been prevented from leaving the Sony factory in Pontoux-sur-l’Adrour in south-west France following a protest over redundancy payments.

I don’t know about France, but it’s lawful in the United States to use deadly force on kidnappers. If I were the workers at, say, Smith & Wesson, I don’t think I’d try this negotiating tactic. Management may very well, as Marko said, reject “an unacceptably termed business proposition.”

One Response to “Labor Negotiations in France”

France has long been a rough place to run any sort of private enterprise industrial operation. (This is probably why Renault and Peugeot have never been known to be the makers of any exceptionally great cars.)

The word “sabotage” is believed to have originated from a common practice by French industrial workers back in the 19th century. In those times, the French workers were said to damage or disable machinery at their workplaces whenever they became angry or disgruntled. They did this by removing their footwear, known in French at the time as “sabots,” and letting them fall into the machinery, so as to clog up the mechanisms and halt production. This is what lead to the word “sabotage” as it is known today.